


Now I’m a Believer

by sc010f



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival), M/M, music festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 20:01:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sc010f/pseuds/sc010f
Summary: Jeff has never believed in luck. Rituals aren’t superstitions - rituals are ways of focusing the mind. Jeff has never believed in God, really, either. If he’s ever believed in anything, it’s been hockey. He loves his mom, but love is different from belief, and later he loved Tristan, and probably believed in him, too.These days, though, Jeff knows better than to believe in anything other than himself. He exists, he breathes, he works, and he still loves his mom, but love is different from belief. It’s not hubris, it’s just a fact.A lifetime of hockey had been taken from him, but at least he gets to keep his music.





	Now I’m a Believer

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Pwoops’ amazing art, for the OMGCP Reverse Bang.
> 
> See Kent’s art [HERE](https://pwoops.tumblr.com/post/185157521954/now-im-a-believer-by-sc010f-for-the). Jeff’s art is [HERE](https://pwoops.tumblr.com/post/185157663139/jeff-troy-aesthetic-from-now-im-a-believer-by)

Jeff Troy has a one-night stand with a very pretty man who he picked up after his shift at the Electric Daisy Carnival.

It’s not until late the next morning (almost afternoon), when he wakes in a stupidly comfortable bed (clearly not his, his back feels much too good, for one), that he realizes that this may have been a very bad idea, primarily because anonymous hookups are meant to be anonymous and Jeff knows this guy.

It’s Kent Parson, and the last time Jeff saw him, he was trying to check him into the boards in an attempt to stop the little shit from getting up the ice to Zimmermann for another one of their stupid no-look one timer moves.

Jeff suddenly remembers that he’d also spectacularly _failed_ at getting to Parson because the vicious little fucker was so fast. Oceanic won, too.

“Oh, fuck,” he groans. Just his luck, of course. He moved to Las Vegas because nobody gives a shit about hockey but everyone gives a shit about the spectacle and performance, and Jeff really needed to get away from one of those.

Well, that’s just the way things are, Jeff thinks to himself as he blinks at the ceiling, his heart a heavy strange lump in his chest. One day you’re losing the game that would have taken you to the Memorial Cup, and the next you’re coiling electrical cable at the Electric Daisy Carnival, working your way up the call list, hoping for a better job, and decide, once your shift’s done, you deserve some fun, because if working an EDM is anything it isn’t that.

They hadn’t shared their names, of course, but the guy – Kent _fucking_ Parson had been rocking some stunning eye makeup and a tank top that was showing off a set of sinful arms. Jeff doesn’t allow himself to have a lot, these days, but this time, he’d given in. Grindr will probably be the death of him. 

It’s just the way things happen that the cute guy whose ass you’ve been handling for the last few hours is the guy who handed your ass to you last year at the last game of hockey you’ve ever played.

Jeff’s head throbs as he rolls to the edge of the bed and squints around the room looking for his clothes. If he were a braver man, maybe he’d stay and talk to Parson. If he were a braver man, he’d spend the day pretending he wasn’t a junior level hockey wash-out with a whale shit job and a bum knee.  
Jeff thinks it’s easier to be brave when you have the entire world spread out beneath your skates. He collects his clothes, pulling on his work boots (his last paycheck’s splurge and only decent pair of shoes he has) and sneaks out before things get even more bizarre. He notices that he’s tracked a bunch of dirt and color dust through Parse’s impeccably clean apartment. Well, the guy’s filthy rich, he can afford a cleaning service. Jeff’s happy the union provides health insurance.

He’s trying to look natural as he limps down the hallway to the elevator in Kent Parson’s incredibly swank apartment building, because sure, scruffy men with hangovers, dirty work boots, and stained jeans are totally normal sights here. In the reflective surface of the elevator door, Jeff notices he not only needs non-grungy jeans, but also a clean shirt. He’d been picking up a coil of cable on the infield of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway when his bad knee had given out he’d down hard onto a spill of color dust from the finale.

He looks down and notices not only has he tracked a bunch of color and shit (probably from the discarded Juul cartridges he’d been stepping on all night) that his shirt’s torn.

Jeff could definitely use some ibuprofen right now. “Fuck,” he grunts. “Goddamn knee. Goddamn kids.” He really should have just gone home; nice things aren’t for losers like him. Getting lucky is no luck at all.

His luck, though, his extraordinary bad luck (or the consequences of bad decision making) isn’t done with him yet, of course, because the elevator stops on another floor and Parson’s line-mate Jens Onegin gets in. Onegin gives Jeff a long look, his forehead crinkled but doesn’t say anything.

Jeff almost fought him at Junior Worlds a few years back, and this is definitely not the way he wants to renew their acquaintance. God, he’s a mess. Thankfully, Onegin doesn’t say anything, and Jeff gets out of the elevator as fast as he can when it reaches the lobby.

At home (after an Uber that took twenty minutes to find him and got lost eight times – Jeff can’t really afford it, but he figured he can afford knee surgery even less) he crouches in the tiny plastic bathtub in his apartment, trying to soak out his knee and back. Kit-kat stares at him from the toilet seat cover, her tail neatly wrapped around her paws.

Here’s Jeff Troy at twenty: he works for the Last Vegas Local 720 chapter of IATSE. He’s an almost-certified rigger, but is willing to haul cables and set up chairs and amps for pretty much any concert he can get, though after last night, he’s seriously rethinking his pantheistic approach to music: EDM gives him a throbbing headache: more than an intimate encounter with the ice and a 250-pound defenseman. It will be a few more years before he even qualifies to be put on the wait-list to run a regular gig, like a Cirque show.

He’s whale shit on the call list right now because he’s only been on the roster for a year. He also used to play beautiful fucking hockey, if there’s anything beautiful about smashing guys around on the ice: ritualized violence can be beautiful. Jeff thinks about these things. He’s a literate dude for someone who only sort of graduated from high school.

Jeff was going to be drafted by the Sabres in the second round of the 2008 NHL draft. At least, he was pretty sure he was going to be - he didn’t have a contract or anything, but the scouts and the assistant GM had been pretty encouraging.

Then he’d gotten tossed out of a car as it flipped off the highway, struck by a semi swerving to miss a drunk driver. He’d caught his knee on the door, and then went flying into a tree.

When he woke up a week later, he learned that Buffalo didn’t have that much of an interest in rehabbing a kid with a broken back, a busted-up knee, and no real timeline for being able to walk, let alone skate again.

Jeff leans his head back against the wall of the shower-tub and takes a long drink of beer, humming off key along to the tinny music coming out of his phone, jammed in an empty coffee cup on the counter. He’s trying to drown the fucking artificial noise of EDM thumping through his skull. Kit-kat chirrups at him judgmentally.

“Ungh, whatever,” Jeff grunts and puts his beer down. Everyone, it appears, is a critic, yes, thank you, Jeff is very aware that he’s just as bad for judging Kent Parson for liking that noise that passes as music while he himself has developed a refined affinity for punk rock. Tristan had referred to Jeff’s taste in music as a preference for screaming cats.

“If I heard that behind my house,” he said once. “I’d throw shoes at it.”

“Technically, it’s not a real concert until something _is_ thrown,” Jeff had replied.

His dad had taken him to his first concert – smuggled into a seedy bar to see a local punk band, Jeff can’t remember who they were. Tristan had made him listen to Johnny Cash until he thought his ears bled, but Jeff would have done anything Tristan asked him. Some days, he thought he’d even come out if Tristan had asked him to.

An extra-loud Spotify add jerks him out of his temporary fugue state. The water (which hadn’t been really all that hot to begin with) has gone cold, and he really needs to get some sleep before he has to go back on shift. Dripping and limping, Jeff checks the door, Kit-kat’s dish and litter box and falls into bed. As he’s drifting off he remembers he’s forgotten to brush his teeth.

* * *

If Jeff believed in luck, he’d run into Parse in a coffee shop. There’d be a moment, and Parse would recognize him from across the room and… Jeff’s not sure what would happen next because what would they even say to each other? Would Jeff even want to be recognized as a never-was hockey player? Is Parse even out to his team?

Jeff scowls at himself around his toothbrush in the mirror at the fading hickey on his chest – a gift from Parse - a few days later. He pokes at it: not exactly the same as a bruise from a puck or a check. It’s probably a good thing that he can’t afford coffee shops or luck.

* * *

Jeff is much more sanguine a few weeks later at the Punk Rock Bowling Festival. He makes a note to request never, ever, work an EDM concert again if he can help it. He really doesn’t care if that makes him an old man compared to other people his age (Kent Parson, for example, his brain unhelpfully reminds him), then he’ll be an old man.

Of course, Jeff is working, so he doesn’t get to see all the acts he would’ve liked to, or drink, or pick up, but it is good money, he does get to sneak into some acts, and there are far fewer color packs that destroy his work clothes. There are still way too many Juul cartridges, though, but more smuggled pot, and Jeff’s always found the smell of weed comforting, sue him.

Jeff is especially pleased, late on Sunday night to be humping amps for the Descendents. His physical therapist had been a fan, and Jeff’s recovery had been underscored by their early albums, and when the group had played live in 2010, she’d been over the moon.

Jeff decides, after he clocks out, to go back to the truck and see if the guys will sign something for her. She taught Jeff how to walk again, it’s the very least Jeff could do.

“Hey, man,” Jeff says limping up to Karl Alverez, their bassist. “Great set.” He sticks out his hand awkwardly. “Your music got me through a lot of shit a few years ago. So, yeah, thanks for that.”

Alvarez is friendly and accepts Jeff’s thanks gracefully, not asking about Jeff’s specific “shit” (Jeff reminds himself that nobody but him really cares about that), and offers to sign something.

Of course, Jeff doesn’t have anything on him, and he can feel himself turning red. So much for advanced planning, he thinks.

“Sorry, I, uh…” he begins to stutter. “I just wanted to thank you, man…”

“Can I help?” a voice asks. Jeff turns, wrenching his knee, and sees Kent Parson appear from the shadows of the gear truck (and what the hell) and offers Alvarez an Aces snapback and a sharpie. “It’s not really band wear, but…”

If Jeff wasn’t acutely aware of his knee screaming at him, he’d be convinced he was dreaming.

“Thanks, kid,” Alvarez is saying to Parse. “Sorry about the season.”

“Yeah, well…” Parse scratches the back of his neck, and Jeff needs to either stop staring or wake up or something, because this is _not_ happening.

“Yeah, I know,” Alvarez replies. “Next year.”

“Always next year,” Parser says and damn, if Jeff’s heart doesn’t break just a little. He wonders if it’s for the Aces or for himself.

“Here you go, man.” Alvarez hands Jeff the snapback and claps both him and Kent on the shoulder and walks away.

Jeff manages to close his mouth with a dry gulp and turns to Parson.

“Uh, thanks for that,” he says uncertainly. Parser (can Jeff call him Kent in his head? He’s seen the dude’s o-face) grunts a little.

“No problem,” he says to Jeff. “I was around, and I saw you, and this is probably super awkward, but do we know each other?”

Jeff’s gut drops. His tongue clings to the roof of his mouth, and his hears begin to ring from the noise of the day. His entire body feels like it’s on fire.

“You… you like punk too?” he asks stupidly.

“Uh, well, no.” Parse looks confused. “I was here with Scrappy who fuckin loves this shit. But I gotta say, you look really familiar.”

Scrappy. Jens Onegin, of course. The guy Jeff ducked away from in Parse’s apartment.

Jeff should say no. He should walk (limp) away and get on with his life: his crappy apartment, his so-called dreams of a steady gig instead of back breaking concert labor, and his judgmental cat. But Jeff doesn’t seem to be able to make sensible decisions these days. And Parse is wearing another tank top.

Jeff sticks out his hand. “Jeff Troy,” he says. “We fucked a few weeks ago after the Electric Daisy Carnival, but before that you and Zimmermann blew us out at our last game of the 2008 season. I came at you and you make me look like the world’s biggest asshat. You scored a really sweet goal, by the way.”

Parse’s reaction is priceless. He goes red, then pale and looks about three seconds from passing out.

Jeff instantly regrets being brave. He turns and bolts, leaving Parse with the cap in his hands.

* * *

The next shift Jeff takes involves no unexpected appearances of Kent Parson or anyone else, for that matter. This shift is the extra late shift, and Jeff isn’t done until the sun is breaking over the skyline, bathing the grounds in orange light. 

Jeff is exhausted, not only from the shift, but also from the events of the previous night and the fact that he’d slept terribly once he managed to get home. Too twitchy to settle, he had stared at the television for hours, being walked over by Kit-kat occasionally (he appreciated the occasional check in from his cat - if only because if he’d actually died of embarrassment, there wouldn’t be anyone around to feed her). Horrific infomercials, however, did nothing to alleviate the flashes of anxiety and embarrassment alternating with the drops into depression and anger.

According to the articles he’d made himself read after Tristan’s funeral, anger and depression were normal parts of the grieving process. Jeff wondered, sitting in the flickering blue light of his living room if he was grieving his career, his life, or if it wasn’t grief at all, but jealousy; Kent Parson got his wish, his career and Jeff got left with a cat.

Jeff’s knee pulls him back into his present reality and he feels a flush of anger, this time at himself for being so melodramatic. He’s an adult now, he can grow up and do his damn job like the rest of the world and maybe pick up coffee and cat food on the way home.

* * *

It’s unfortunate, then, that his car won’t start. Jeff slams his hands against the steering wheel and lets out a string of words he hasn’t needed to use since his days in the Q. 

He weighs his options as best he can with his exhaustion-fogged brain and decides that he’ll have to find a ride home, and deal with the pile of dogshit car later. The gates are opening and people are streaming through for another hot day of punk rock and general chaos. Jeff fights against the crowd to the entrance, poking at his phone, trying to summon an Uber (surely, of all the people coming to party can afford the ticket price, one of them must have taken an Uber who might be looking for a return fare). 

Then he hears his name. He turns and Kent Parson and Jens Onegin are standing by the gate, waving at him.

* * *

“Troy! Wait!” Parser’s calling him and Jeff isn’t running away, he swears he isn’t, but Jeff can’t lie, even to himself, and he is, hurrying out of the venue as fast as he can.

His knee seizes again and he goes down hard.

“Troy!”

Jeff pushes himself to his good knee, clenching his teeth and trying not to scream.

“Troy! Jeff, let us help. Come on, man.” It’s Parse and Onegin and Jeff thinks this is probably some kind of cosmic punishment for, well, everything he’s ever done.

He’s being lifted, though, slung between a very large hockey player (Onegin), and a not-so-large one who smells (oh, God, Jeff thinks hysterically, I’m smelling his hair) ridiculously nice. For the record, Onegin smells like beer.

“Come on, let’s get you sitting. Are you okay?” Onegin is talking and while Jeff’s knee is still screaming at him, taking the weight off of it has helped him regain some level of cognizance.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” he manages to grit out as Parse and Onegin steer him to the steps of a trailer. “It does that, sometimes,” he adds inanely, staring fixedly at the ground. “Fuck. What are you doing here?”

“Do you need ice?” Parse asks and Jeff looks up, and damn it, Parse is just so fucking beautiful.

“Ice is… Ice is good,” Jeff manages. “I’ll ice it when I get home. I’m off shift, it’s okay.” He tries to pull himself to his feet, but of course he can’t stand on his own. “Why’re you here, anyway? You’re not stalking me, are you?”

Onegin laughs and Parse looks redder than he did already from the exertion of hauling Jeff’s sorry ass around the grounds.

“Nope,” Parse says, and that’s not actually answering the question, Jeff notes. “No good. Scraps, bring your truck around, we’ll take him to my place.”

“And how are you going to get him to the gate?” Onegin asks. “He leans against you and you’ll get crushed.”

“Fuck you,” Parse replies. “I’m not _that_ small.”

“Ask Mashkov the next time you see him,” Onegin says. “See what he has to say.”

Jeff squeezes his eyes shut. The familiarity of the bickering, the camaraderie of the constant chirping makes his heart clench. Sure, stagehands are a salty bunch, but it’s not like the chirping of a _team_. Jeff feels lonely. _Snap out of it,_ he thinks savagely to himself. _You’re being pathetic._ He’d just managed to get over himself, he’s not going to let himself spiral again, just because he keeps running into the same damn person every twenty four hours.

“No, look, it’s okay,” he starts to say, but Parse interrupts him.

“Fine, give _me_ your keys. _You_ can haul him to the entrance. I’ll meet you at gate C.”

“Better,” Onegin says, and tosses Parse the keys. “You drive the big truck around, I’ll haul Jeff Troy’s big ass to gate C.”

Parse shakes his head and laughs.

“You really ought to treat your captain with more respect, you know.”

“Whatever,” Onegin says. “We’ll see you in ten minutes.”

The next ten minutes are some of the most awkward of Jeff’s life while Onegin half carries, half slings him across the now empty venue to the gate.

“I think we dropped gloves once,” Onegin says partly through the trip.

“Yeah,” Jeff grits out, focusing on staying upright. “And I won.”

“Hmm, maybe it wasn’t me, then,” Onegin says. “I never lose my fights.” Jeff can’t see him, but he knows Onegin is smiling.

The tiny spark he keeps in his heart for hockey flames brilliant for a moment before flickering out as the next flare of pain hits.

* * *

“Ice then bath,” Parse says as he and Onegin haul Jeff into Parse’s apartment. They dump Jeff on the sofa and Onegin gets ice from the kitchen while Parse disappears into the back of the apartment to run a bath.

Jeff accepts the bag of ice Onegin hands him and just… gives up. He leans his head against the back of the couch and closes his eyes.

“You need any painkillers?” Onegin asks.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Okay, then.” Onegin nods. “Parser!” he shouts. “I’m out! You can manhandle your hot daddy friend into the tub.”

“Fuck you, Scraps!” Parse shouts back. “That’s _your_ kink!”

Onegin laughs, and looks at Jeff.

“Don’t hurt him,” he says seriously. “You may have won in 2007, but now, I’d beat your ass.”

Jeff raises his hands as surrender.

Onegin stares for another minute and if Jeff weren’t so exhausted, so emotionally worn down, and essentially pinned to a couch by a bag of ice and another dude’s death stare, he’d be running away. Whatever Onegin sees in Jeff’s face, he seems to approve of, as he ruffles Jeff’s hair and leaves.

In the bathroom, the water shuts off.

“You ready?” Parse asks as he comes back into the living room.

“Yeah, uh…”

“Here, let me help.” Parse braces himself and together he and Jeff manage to get Jeff upright and limping to the bathroom.

“Listen,” says Jeff. “You don’t need to do this. I mean, I don’t want you feeling obliged, or something, because I’m some dumbass who had a one night stand with you.”

“What makes you think I’m only after one night?” Parse asks, his grin sly. “Actually,” he continues. “I came back to give you the hat. I asked around after you disappeared last night and found out when your next shift was.”

“So you were stalking me.”

“Eh, sort of. No. Maybe?” Parse eases Jeff onto the toilet lid and helps him take off his work boots. “I mean, we did kinda bang a while ago, and you’re really hot in those jeans and boots. And it was just luck, I guess, running into you a second time.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Jeff says, shortly. 

“Oh, so I’m reading this wrong,” Kent says. “Jesus, I’m sorry, dude, I thought…” he trails off looking dismayed and Jeff’s heart twinges. This is not the Kent of the Q, not the virtuosic hockey player whose life Jeff envies. This is just a guy who - oh, God.

It dawns on Jeff that he’s hurt the dude’s feelings.

“No. Ugh,” Jeff replies. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that. I’m, uh, sorry I snapped at you. I’m not… I lost someone, actually a lot of stuff a while back, and I’m not… I guess I have issues I need to deal with.”

Parse laughs.

“No kidding. Welcome to the club,” he says. “Hi, my name is Kent Parson and I have emotional issues.”

Jeff can’t help the grin that cracks across his face. If this works out (and a tiny part of Jeff is hoping beyond all hope that it will), even if it doesn’t, Jeff will at least have the memory of Kent Parson’s lopsided, beautiful smile. 

Damn, Jeff has it _bad_.

 _Great,_ Jeff thinks. _Now I have to get into a bathtub with an erection in front of Kent Parson._

* * *

Jeff’s nascent erection is suddenly completely irrelevant, because Kent Parson has the most beautiful bathtub Jeff’s ever seen. First off, it’s fucking huge - bigger than Jeff’s entire bathroom, probably. Secondly, it’s filled with steaming water and of course, there’s a bath bomb fizzing gently in it. 

Jeff isn’t into perfumes and scents very much (Old Spice solid is about as far as he gets), but he’s also not exactly above being ridiculously pampered. He’s given up a bunch of bullshit about masculinity a long time ago, and if anything is happening to him right now, he’s probably about to die and go to heaven. Heaven is a bathtub, he thinks wildly: There’s a new band name.

Yes, he’s definitely dead because he’s neck deep in sweet smelling water, and Parse is slipping off his shirt. 

“This okay?” Parse asks. “Sort of stalking aside, I’m not overstepping or misreading this, am I?”

“What?” Jeff blurts. “Oh, _fuck_ no, you are not misreading this,” he says, and yes, it may come out a bit too eager.

“Good.” Parse’s grin as he shucks off his shorts sends a shudder through Jeff.

The water sloshes as Parse climbs in. There’s more than enough room for two, but Jeff suddenly wants Parse near him. If this is a second stand with Parse, Jeff is definitely going for it.

Parse’s skin is cool against Jeff’s heated back, his arms strong as they wrap around him. Jeff gives a pleased sigh and stretches, cuddling back into Parse who kisses his neck and shoulders gently. 

“We’re going to have sex, aren’t we?” Jeff asks ten minutes later, completely relaxed and prune-like, lazily tracing patterns on Parse’s forearm.

“I’m down,” Parse replies. He wiggles against Jeff’s back. “If you want.” He’s not hard, and neither is Jeff, too exhausted and too relaxed to move. “Later, though. We have time.”

Jeff’s life has always felt governed by time in some way - the timing of shifts on the ice, the timing of relationships, and now the seemingly endless future of cables and amps and night shifts, and he wants to argue with Parse - no, Kent - he wants to argue with Kent that no, they don’t have time, but something something about the bubble of Kent’s apartment, of Kent’s arms keeps him from arguing.

* * *

Jeff doesn’t exactly move into Kent’s apartment. He just forgets to go home more or less permanently. Obviously, he doesn’t leave Kit-kat to her own devices, he’s a good pet dad, but he does bring her over to Kent’s place when it becomes clear that a) Jeff’s car is destined for the scrap heap and bouncing back and forth is too much of a hassle and b) he’s not above working himself into Kent’s life if the guy is actually as willing to allow that to happen as he appears to be.

Jeff doesn’t really have the emotional capacity for pride or rejecting good things out of hand, his first encounters with Kent notwithstanding. 

Kit-kat takes to Kent and Kent’s apartment immediately, and Kent takes to Kit-kat at once, making it his mission to spoil the miserable little critter as rotten as he possibly can. Soon Kit has a ridiculously sized cat tree, more catnip mice than she could possibly need (Jeff knows this because he keeps stepping on the fucking things barefoot), and free reign of Kent’s home, which has now also, more or less become Jeff’s as well.

It isn’t perfect. There are nights of strained silences as Kent checks his phone constantly, stays awake staring at the television, and instigates ridiculous fights with Jeff. But Jeff’s no saint either, and when he realizes one day that he’s not constantly thinking of Tristan, he instigates a ridiculous argument with Kent that takes days to smooth over.

After the Great Casserole Throwing Incident of August, right before Kent starts training camp, the two of them sit down with a therapist and start talking through their individual traumas. After a few sessions, Jeff realizes that maybe his issues and Kents might just be more similar than they thought. 

More fights, but more therapy sessions ensue, but Jeff becomes more and more convinced that maybe Kent isn’t the irredeemable douche canoe with everything anyone could ever want, just as Kent learns that learns about how other people deal with trauma and grief without necessarily cutting other people out of their lives.

More and more often, though, as Kent’s story comes out, haltingly, in bursts of stuttered words and emotions, and Kent learns Jeff’s own heartache, the two find themselves closer than before. 

It’s not a bad deal, really.

* * *

**One Hockey Season Later**

“You bought a Volkswagen bus.”

“Yes. The surfboards are mine, though. Looks good, right?”

Jeff has had years of pretending to look intimidating to keep a straight face.

“It looks like you’re having a midlife crisis. At twenty-five.”

“I’m a millennial. It’s technically a quarter-life crisis,” Kent replies primly.

“Fuck you, I’m two years older than you. When’s my quarter-life crisis? Does this mean I get my Indian motorcycle?”

Kent rolls his eyes. “Get in, bitch, we’re going road tripping,” he says.

Inside the bus, there’s a cunningly built kennel/crate for Kit, including her cat-tree and litter box.

“Where are we going?” Jeff asks, as he buckles up.

Kent puts the van in gear.

“You’re always complaining about how you never get to go to any good concerts,” he says.

“That’s because I’m _working_. Some of us have jobs during those things.”

“Well, I never get to see any good hockey games, and you don’t hear me complaining,” Kent says with a grin.

“That’s because good hockey games are the ones you’re playing.”

“Aw, babe, you do care.”

“Of course, I care, I love you, dipshit.” Jeff reaches over and pulls Kent’s knuckles to his mouth for a kiss. “But you were saying, I’m always bitching about concerts. So where are we going?”

Kent merges onto the highway. “Look in the glove compartment,” he says, and then, completely spoiling it because Kent is like that. “We’re going to Austin! You, Jeffrey Swoops Troy are going to experience your lifelong dream of appearing late night on PBS in an episode of Austin City Limits. I even got us passes for the Willie Nelson taping.”

“Kent, I… wow.” Jeff suddenly can’t remember what words are.

“Thank me later, old man,” Kent says. “The things I do for you. Austin City Limits. Willie _Nelson_. You know I’m completely ruining my street cred for you.”

“Kent, you…, I….”

Kent squeezes Jeff’s thigh.

“Love you too, dipshit.”

Jeff may not believe in god, hockey, or luck, but he knows he loves Kent Parson, and without a doubt, he believes in Kent. Now, if he could just convince Kent that EDM isn’t real music, life will be perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Immense gratitude to Pwoops for the art and patience, thanks to the Mods for making this possible, and to Mundungus42 for making this readable!


End file.
